Early Adult Star Samantha Fox Passes Quietly At Home

NEW YORK CITY—Samantha Fox, a New York City native who performed in 94 adult movies between 1976 and 1985, died at her home in the city's East Village on April 22, reportedly of natural causes. She was 69 years old. Samantha was born December 4, 1950, and began her adult career with Dr. Love, directed by Robert Michaels. It's unclear which studio caused the film (yes, it was film in those days) to be made, but it was distributed by VCA Pictures. She appeared alongside such popular actors of the day as Mary Stuart, Alan Adrian, Bobby Astyr and Levi Richards, and had one sex scene with Ron Hudd. During the course of her career, she worked for all the major New York studios, including appearing in several films for Arthur Morowitz's Video-X-Pix and Howard Winters' Command Video. According to the Internet Movie Database, she also appeared in the loops "Anal Party" and "Three Star Love" in the late '70s with Vanessa del Rio, Jesse Adams and Dave Ruby. Samantha was by all reports a fairly quiet person, and almost no interviews of her survive. However, Vivienne Maricevic, the only professional photographer allowed to take photos of the live sex shows at New York's Show World, did interview Samantha, which she wrote up and allowed The Rialto Report to reprint. "It was in 1976 and I had done some still photography layouts for people," Maricevic recorded Samantha as saying. "An agent sent me to go see a producer and I didn't really know what it was for. When I walked in, the man said, 'You're the star, and I said, 'Are you kidding? What are you talking about?' 'Well,' he said, 'I'm doing an X-rated film and I just know I have to have you for the star; I think you're beautiful'. This was a totally wonderful thing to hear. He hired me right on the spot and I did my first film." Samantha went on to say that she didn't think of her adult film acting as a career, but more as a way to earn pocket money, plus the thought of being on camera was exciting to her, since she described herself as something of an exhibitionist. Samantha also said that working in XXX helped her stop taking drugs and taught her how to negotiate business deals. "My beautiful joyous kind and spiritual friend... died yesterday peacefully at home in her apartment in the East Village," wrote Barry Keating on his Facebook page. "She was a much loved and appreciated neighbor in our Cooper Square MHA community. She was also the famous 'Samantha Fox' erotic-film superstar of the Seventies and Eighties. She was an angel on earth, and now in Heaven." AVN has asked for comments from her friends in the adult world, and this story will be updated when they respond.